Audio codes
Music
- Audiences associate different styles of music with particular genres. Eerie, unsettling music is used to generate fear in horror films, while a swelling orchestral score can heighten emotion throughout a drama. A piece of music can also be associated with a certain character like the instantly recognisable James Bond theme or a specific threat - like the distinctive Jaws theme.
Sound effects
- Sound effects can define genre: lasers being fired, robots communicating, the roar of spaceship engines and the whoosh of light sabres are all heard in the Star Wars movies - and signal sci-fi.
- Sound effects can also accentuate what is being portrayed on screen, for example in many television comedies Laughter added to a programme in post production. is used to prompt the viewer to laugh.
- Television adverts use exaggerated sounds - this might be the loud crunch of cereal as it is eaten, the fizz of a drink as it is poured or the revving of a car engine.
Most sound effects are recorded separately and added in post production. These men are creating the sound of horses on gravel
Dialogue
- Dialogue uses language to convey genre. In a hospital drama like Casualty, the dialogue contains medical terms and phrases, while a crime drama like Luther uses vocabulary specific to police work, the law and forensic science.
Voiceover
- Voiceovers are commonly used in some genres, particularly documentaries and film trailers. A voiceover is Sound which does not have a source on-screen, like a voice-over or music., meaning that you can't see the source of the sound; like David Attenborough's narration of wildlife documentaries - we can hear him speaking but he is not seen on screen.